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The Genuine Article
The Genuine Article is the 6th episode of the first season. Summary Despite being very close to losing her job, Maggie is able to get herself assigned to the flight going to Rio de Janeiro by claiming she is fluent in Portuguese. As she looks back on the path she took to get her job, she realizes she would do anything to keep it. Kate is given an assignment that involves discovering Niko's political sympathies. After learning that the CIA wants her to recruit Niko, she tries to balance both the task at hand and her growing relationship with him. Dean is annoyed as Ginny continues to romantically vacillate between him and her boss, Mr. Henson. During the flight to Rio de Janeiro, a photographer for Life magazine takes pictures of Laura. After Rio de Janeiro police arrest Laura and Maggie for buying stolen goods during a raid, Laura discovers Maggie is not fluent in Portuguese and makes her disappointment in her new roommate clear. Ted eventually arrives at the police station and bribes the officers to let them go. Still facing the possibility of losing her job, Maggie solicits Henson's assistance on the flight back to New York and following their arrival at the Worldport. When he refuses for a second time to help her, Maggie offers to provide information that might be of interest to him. At the end of the episode, we see a triumphant Maggie with her job still intact. Recap It's morning in New York and Captain Dean Lowrey is enjoying the view. He's not looking at the Manhattan skyline, he's looking at his new lover, Ginny wearing some of his pilot's uniform. It looks like the two of them have continued their romance, even though she's still the mistress of Mr. Henson, a Vice President for Pan Am. Is this relationship becoming the real thing? Maggie's having a lot less fun this morning, in a meeting with Ms. Havemeyer and management. It seems her stunt at uniform inspection has finally come back to bite her and her file is officially under review. They're even ready to ground her from her flight to Rio de Janeiro, but she tells them it’s going to be tough for them to find a replacement, because she’s fluent in Portuguese. To Ms. Havemeyer’s chagrin, Maggie’s off to Rio, but she’ll have some more tough questions to answer when she returns. It turns out Kate is the one who’s going to miss the flight. Richard, her handler with U.S. Intelligence, has arranged for her Small Pox vaccination records to go missing, so she’s grounded from the flight. That gives her plenty of time to work on her new assignment—getting closer to her new boyfriend, Niko. He’s a U.N. diplomat from Yugoslavia and Richard wants to know what his plans are when he returns to his country. Thus far Kate’s been playing courier and spying on strangers, but this will be the first time she’s spying on someone she cares about. Meanwhile, Laura’s being a model stewardess, literally. A photographer from LIFE Magazine is doing a follow-up on her cover story and he’s snapping pictures of her the whole time on the flight to Rio. It’s making her nervous and throwing her off, but Maggie swoops in to help—and to get in a bunch of pictures so the Pan Am brass can’t fire her. She makes a deal with the photographer that she’ll help him get a great shot of Laura if he’ll make sure she’s in it, too. But things go south when, during a shopping trip in Rio, the girls get hauled in by the police for buying stolen merchandise. Dean’s flight got a little more turbulence than he was expecting when Ginny shows up in the cockpit. She’s flying to Rio to be with Mr. Henson under the auspices of being his secretary and coordinating the photo shoot. When they get to Rio, Dean makes it clear that what happened in Monte Carlo was fun, but he’s not willing to risk getting caught again. But Ginny seems to be as comfortable flirting with disaster as she is with Dean when she invites him and Colette to join her and Henson for dinner. It’s uncomfortable and there are a few times where we’re sure that Mr. Henson is going to catch on, but the ladies excuse themselves before that can happen. Instead, Mr. Henson confides in Dean that he’s in love with Ginny. We flash back to Maggie a few years ago, working as a waitress in a diner in Tacoma, Washington. She seems far more interested in reading literature than serving entrees and when a truck driver gives her a great tip—well, it’s only three cents, but it came with some great advice—she leaves that life behind and goes out to get a new one. She finds it in Berkeley at the University, working in the registrar’s office. When a young Pan Am stewardess comes in having to drop a World Literature class, Maggie gets the idea to just pick it up. She begins attending a bunch of interesting courses impersonating different students all over campus. It seems to work for a whole semester, but when she gets caught, it’s time for her to move on. She talks her way into a job at Pan Am, with the help a transcript from Berkeley that she may have taken a few liberties with. That comes back to haunt her in the present when she has to confess to Laura that, among several of the things about her that might not be exactly true, is the fact that she does not actually speak Portuguese. Darn, that would have come in pretty handy when needing to talk one’s way out of Brazilian police station. Luckily, Ted shows up with a universal translator—a wad of cash. The girls are free, but Laura’s lost a lot of respect for Maggie. Kate and Niko have a great time, but it becomes clear to her that he’s deeply troubled about the direction that his country is going. He has plans to go home and visit his family, but those all change when his cousin is put on a show trial by his own government. He has to fly to Belgrade to do what he can, and Kate turns over all of the information to Richard. He seems pretty pleased with her progress and tells her she needs to turn Niko from a “target” into an “asset.” We think Kate’s beginning to miss those days of just being a courier. Maggie ends up doing a little spying of her own. When the plane lands back in New York, Ginny confronts Dean in the cockpit and confesses her love for him, with Maggie right outside. When Maggie gets into the airport and finds out she needs to have a conversation with management right away, she panics. She’s got nothing better to move on to this time. Instead, she trades some information to Mr. Henson in return for a good word. Ms. Havemeyer is practically seething when they pass in the halls later, but as we see Maggie settle in at Pan Am headquarters to actually start to learn Portuguese, for real this time, we can tell by the look on her face that she’s not proud of what she just did to keep her job. Countries *Brazil *New York, USA Trivia *Takes place in August 1963. Quotes Gallery Category:Episodes